Gregoire: Special session to deal with budget crisis

Lawmakers will be called back to Olympia before Christmas to come up with more than $1 billion in cuts to the current budget, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday.

The governor said she’ll wait until Thursday to hear from legislators about a date, but if they don’t pick one she’ll decide.

After a revenue forecast last month showed the current budget, which ends in July, was deeper in deficit than previous estimates, Gregoire asked for ideas from all four legislative caucuses. She said the situation was so dire it couldn’t wait until January, when the Legislature will convene for its regular session.

Gregoire announced the deadline after meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.

“We’re prepared to go to work whenever we have to,” Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla, said after the meeting.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, said Senate Democrats will push for a Friday start, with work to continue through the weekend. She noted that lawmakers are already in town for prescheduled committee meetings that will last all week.

“It makes more sense than going home and coming back at some point,” she said.

Gregoire has proposed eliminating the state’s health insurance for the poor and needy (which is called Basic Health), ending the state food assistance, no longer funding programs for gifted students and delaying grant payments that help low-income students go to college.

Senate Republicans would have state workers – including those at universities – take a 2.5 percent across-the-board pay cut to help preserve health insurance for the most needy in Washington state. For more about their ideas, click here.

House Democrats have their own plan. They, too, would try to save Basic Health.

Gregoire has also asked state workers to reopen labor contracts to find savings. The state will close McNeil Island Corrections Center April 1, the third prison to close in a year due to ballooning budget deficits.

The state Department of Corrections had to cut at least $53 million from its budget, part of 6 percent across-the-board cuts Gregoire announced earlier this year. Because tax revenue isn’t coming in at the expected pace, departments will have to cut even further, which is why Gregoire is calling lawmakers back to Olympia.